


22 hours 19 minutes, repeated

by cdybedahl



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-11
Updated: 2011-06-11
Packaged: 2017-10-20 08:17:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cdybedahl/pseuds/cdybedahl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not possible to change the past in order to save someone who's been lost. But it may be possible to visit it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	22 hours 19 minutes, repeated

Slowly, Helena opens the worn wooden box. There's an ache in her elbow, and her wrinkled hands are shaking. They always are, these days. She can still see well, and her hearing is good for her age, but time has robbed her hands of their dexterity. The joints of her fingers are swollen, and when there's a change of weather coming they ache. Still, it could be worse. Or, rather, it is worse. The dust that stirs when she takes the battered old book out brings on a bout of coughing, and it takes several minutes for her to get it under control. Her head is pounding, her abdominal muscles worn out and her breathing comes ragged and wheezing when she manages to stop the coughing. She closes her eyes and tries to calm herself down.  
It's only going to get worse.  
The doctor showed her the little clots of tissue all over her lungs, pointed them out by making them flash red in the image hovering in the air between them. Helena has no idea how they projected it, or how they'd taken the images of her insides. She'd sat in an uncomfortable chair for ten minutes, and that was it. Ten minutes to be scanned and five minutes talking to the doctor was enough for a death sentence. Of course, they didn't put it that way. They gave options. Suggested treatments. They admitted that the prognosis wasn't good, since she was after all quite old and her genetic background somewhat unusual, but there was no reason to give up hope.  
She turned them down.  
They have no idea how old she is. The identity she has been using since she managed to run away from the Regents gives a date of birth in the late 1970s. It matches her biological age well enough, but is more than a century too late by the calendar. It is no great wonder her genetics confused them, they probably don't have that much material from Victorian London. Particularly not that is still walking around. These days, she feels her age. She'd had a hard time adapting when she was debronzed in 2010, another half-century of runaway progress hasn't made it any easier. Just harder. These days there is actually a horse and coach passing by on the street below her flat a few times every day, of sorts. It looks, sounds and smells like one, but the horse is really a large piece of protein-based processing substrate for hire. The horse appearance is just marketing. She isn't sure what the coach is for. Sometimes there are people in it, although never a driver. The horse-thing is smart enough to guide itself.  
Back in 1899, she'd written a book about a man who slept for two centuries, and the world he woke up in. She'd imagined that the future world would be strange to him and adaptation hard, but she hadn't been anywhere close to how bad it was in real life. Even with having lived through most of the change and getting it gradually, some of it is just too strange for her to deal with. One of the options the doctors offered her is to have her consciousness transferred to an exo-brain cluster in Zürich, and buy access to a malleable pseudo-organic remote body. Her insurance isn't fancy enough to pay for one entirely, but she could join a time-share collective. One day out of seven, she'd have a young and whole body again, that'd look exactly like her own had when she was in her mid-twenties, while she wore it. The rest of the time she'd live wholly in virtual space, the body used by and looking like someone else. It is an entirely valid life-style choice these days. Many people live like that exclusively, she is told.  
It is not for her. Not only is her body breaking down, it feel like her soul is tired. The thought of trying to adapt to a change that radical just makes her feel exhausted. It might be a way to go on living, but she is no longer sure that she wants to do that. She has long ago run out of reasons to go on, and some days she thinks she's coasted through the past couple of decades on pure inertia. The last time she really felt something, strongly and into her heart, was back when she'd had Myka's ashes moved to the plot next to Christina. She waited until Myka's mother had finally passed away before doing it, since she knows all too well how hard it is to lose a daughter and how much a grave can mean. Having Myka's grave where she can visit it means a lot to Helena, even so many years after she died. Also, it seems appropriate that the two people she truly loved rest next to each other. One day, she will be resting there with them.  
One day soon.  
Her breathing under control again, she slowly makes her way over to an old chair. She probably should be using her cane, but she doesn't like it. It's too much of a reminder that she's feeble. She minds being physically frail much more than she minds being old, out of date with the world and tired of living. Late afternoon light falls in through the window. Through it, Helena can see Paris rooftops. Her room used to be an attic, way back when. The house itself was already built back when she was bronzed, which is one of the reasons she still lives there. That it's near the graves of Myka and Christina is the other.  
She opens the book. It's leather bound, with nothing printed on the covers. On the first page is written, by hand, "The Diary of H G Wells, 1899 to 2013". While fairly hefty for a book, it's still a slim volume for such a long time. That's what happens when you spend all but four of those years in suspended animation. She runs her finger across the thickness of it. In a few places, bookmarks stick out. If she let it fall open on its own, it'd almost certainly end up open to one of those pages. She knows those pages by heart, she's read them so many times. The first one is short, all it says is "Went to my old house. Got accosted by two Warehouse agents. They weren't very good, but the woman was pretty cute. Wouldn't mind meeting her again." Thinking about that entry makes her smile. Quite unlike the last entry. It's not on the last page of the book, and it doesn't have a bookmark. There are a few score empty pages after it. She's never read it, at all. Even while she wrote it. Her eyes were brimming with tears as she scrawled it onto the paper, and the next time she managed to bring herself to write into the diary she got a new book. She still knows very, very well what that last entry says. It's even shorter than the one at the first bookmark. It's just a date and the words "Myka's dead".  
Neither of those entries are the reason she's taken the old diary out now. No, this time has to do with the other bookmarks. The ones in the middle. The three times she had somehow managed to completely forget about until she happened to read about one of them in the diary, several years after Myka died. It had been a bad time for her, and she'd taken the diary out and started reading her entries from the short few weeks when she was an agent for Warehouse 13. Even this long after, she wasn't sure if she'd wanted to remind herself that once she had been happy, or if she simply wanted to wallow in misery. Possibly it was both. In any case, she'd stumbled over an entry that read "Another blackout. About twenty-two and a half hours, as close as I can tell. Really 22:19, I'm sure. Again, nobody noticed anything off. So, Future Me, whatever you were doing, I hope you had fun. From the way Myka keeps smiling at me, I think she at least did."  
She'd been stunned. How could she possibly have forgotten that? Once she saw the entry she remembered it clearly. Three times it had happened. Three times over the course of those weeks. Her hands had started shaking so badly she had to clutch the diary to her chest in order not to drop it. _She could go back_. Three times, she could go back to the weeks when she was happy. If she just managed to rebuild her time machine, she could go back and, for twenty-two hours and nineteen minutes, be happy again. It was time not yet used. Three times twenty-two and nineteen that had been saved, hoarded for the future. There was still a total of sixty-six hours and fifty-seven minutes that she could spend with Myka.  
It took her three years to build the time machine, version 2. It was much smaller and far more reliable than the original. The difference between 1899 state-of-the-art technology and 2019 off-the-shelf-crap-technology was like the difference between a campfire and a volcano. She built it into a stuffed chair this time, and powered it from a wall socket. It didn't look like much, which was convenient. But the physics remained the same. With better clocks, she refined her measurement of the duration to 22 hours, 19 minutes and 16.445 seconds, but she still couldn't make it last either longer or shorter. Nor could she change anything in the past. On top of that, stealing chunks of someone's life like that bothered her conscience, so after she'd tested it enough to make sure it worked, she let it be.  
It sat there, gathering dust in a corner of the room, for another five years. All the time while she'd been working on it, she'd been driven by the thought of getting to see Myka again, however briefly. Only when she finally could do it, her nerves failed her. Three times, that was all she had. No do-overs, no repeats, no second chances. Three times. No more, no less. For the rest of her life, that was how many times she could see her life's love again. How do you chose when to spend treasure like that?  
Five years it took before she used it. She went to the chronologically latest period, the one closest to when Helena herself went crazy and tried to end the world. For a day and a night, she was again an agent of Warehouse 13. For a day and a night, she was again Myka Bering's friend and lover. It was even better than she remembered it. The friendship of the group, the excitement of hunting down an artifact, the tender lovemaking --- it all made her feel alive again.  
After it ended, after she was thrown back to the silence and solitude of her little Paris flat, she stayed in bed and cried for three days. She only got out when hunger finally forced her. If she hadn't known that she would go back two more times, she might have just lain there and starved to death.  
The next time was, again, many years later. She didn't touch the time machine again until the twentieth anniversary of Myka's death. That time, she thought she knew what she was in for. That she knew how exhilarating the visit would be and how brutal the comedown after. She thought she could handle it. The years since the first trip hadn't been too bad to her. She'd had jobs, some of them even interesting. She'd been on dates, once or twice. Occasionally she talked to the old people who spent their days in the park near her house, feeding the pigeons and griping about how everything was better in the good old days. Good old days that were half a century or more after Helena was born, but she never mentioned that. It was just nice to have a brief refuge from the frantic pace of change of the world around her.  
She wasn't as prepared as she thought. This time she went to the middle of the original three openings, saving the first for last. It was nearly two weeks earlier than the previous visit, and hers and Myka's relationship was only a week old. They were still both in the head-over-heels can't-get-enough-of-you phase. When she arrived in her young body, it was with Myka straddling her and in the process of unbuttoning Helena's blouse with her teeth. It was a slow process with much giggling, and it totally shattered the older Helena's emotional shields. When Myka started kissing her way up between her breasts, she lost control completely. She pushed Myka down into the bed, tore her clothes off and just did everything she could think of. It helped that she remembered that whatever had happened during the blackout period, Myka had liked it a lot.  
The return from that visit was both easier and harder. She didn't crash as hard. She got out of bed, showered, ate, did all those things. But everything was ashes, was meaningless. It was more than a month before she managed to smile at something again. A kitten, it was. A little grey one who appeared out of nowhere while she was in the park and started climbing her pants. When he got to her waist he looked up at her with such an adorable expression of accomplishment that she couldn't help smiling.  
He stayed with her for the next fifteen years. She called him Pete. He was the source of most of her happiness during those years. He'd be waiting for her when she came home, meowing for food and cuddles. On cold winter nights, he'd insist on sleeping under the blanket with her. He'd sense when she was feeling down, and just come lie next to her and purr. But he grew old, and eventually his kidneys gave out. He fell asleep for the last time curled in her lap, the veterinarian's injection spreading through his little body. His purr seemed to last a little longer than his breath, and Helena wondered how many times a human heart can break. She left his food bowls where they were, right next to the fridge where she almost stumbled over them in the mornings. She never got another cat.  
She still hasn't used the last and final visit  
There has been times when she's wanted to, but hesitated and in the end chosen not to. Unlike the other two times, this is the last one. The final one. The end. Once she uses this one, it will be truly over. As long as it goes unused, she at least has the knowledge that she will get to see Myka one more time.  
Now, finally, the time has come. The runaway cells in her alveoli are no longer curable. The cancer is eating her at an ever-increasing pace, and it will not be many more days before she'll have to go into the hospital and never come out again. So this is when she goes back for the last time. Back to the beginning.  
She sits down heavily in the armchair time machine. The upholstering has held up well, considering. Not that it's been used much. She's sat in it a handful of times before herself, and Pete the cat used to sleep on it, more the older he got. As for visitors, there's never been any. So almost the only wear on the chair has been from time itself, and that it has weathered well. She pulls the control panel from its little pocket at the side of the backrest. It's connected to the time machine with a cable; a horrible anachronism even when she built it. But she doesn't want to run even a slight risk of a stray radio signal interfering with the machine while it's running. Time travel is dangerous enough as it is. Slowly, carefully, she forces her uncooperative fingers to enter the proper settings. She looks up the exact time and date in the diary, even though she knows it very well already. But she is old, and she knows it, and memory has been playing tricks on her lately. Better be safe than sorry. When the time machine is prepared, she picks up another control. It too is old. A modern one wouldn't have anything as crude as a manual control. She's actually not sure what it would have instead. Progress moves so fast these days, and Helena doesn't even try to keep up any more. Hasn't for a long time, really.  
It's a simple device. A timer, for the electrical outlet in the wall. She enters the time she wants it to stay active on the keypad. Very simple. 22:19:15, she enters.  
It's one and a half seconds too short. When she turns the timer on, power will flow and she'll be sent back. Twenty-two hours, nineteen minutes and fifteen seconds later the timer will shut off. The time machine will lose power and shut down one and a half seconds before she returns. Her mind will be lost, and she will never have to make that last voyage into the hospital. Instead, her last seconds will be with Myka. Helena likes that thought a lot.  
Looking out through the window at the sun shining down over Paris, she presses the button.

There is a transition that feels so strange, so unlike everything else, that it slips from her memory even as it happens. She comes to in a large room, thickly carpeted, with many low stuffed chairs in muted colors and a circular bar in the middle. One wall is all windows, looking out over a sunlit river through a city. New York, in the year 2010. Across the low table from her, sitting in an identical twin of the chair Helena is in, is Myka. She's looking down into an open Farnsworth.  
Helena stares at her, momentarily too overwhelmed to speak. She hasn't seen her for, what, 20 years? 30? Helena doesn't remember any more. A long, long time. She's even more gorgeous than she remembered. Her hair, her hands, her irritated frown as Artie tells her something she doesn't like. Helena just wants to pounce on her and kiss her silly.  
But they've never done that yet. At this time, they're not yet lovers. Oh, sure, they've been exchanging enough smoldering looks and suggestive remarks to make it really obvious that they both want to, badly. But neither of them have taken that first step, have risked losing what they have now in order to possibly gain so much more.  
Myka closes the Farnsworth, slumps back in her chair and sighs deeply.  
"They don't know," she says.  
"Don't know what?" Helena says.  
Her young voice sounds weird to her.  
"Don't know anything," Myka says. "Artie thinks they'll get more information during the night or early tomorrow. He wants us to wait here for now."  
"The privations we suffer," Helena says. "Left to languish in a swanky Manhattan hotel, with nothing to do but amuse ourselves on someone else's dime until morning. How shall we ever manage."  
Myka gives her a crooked smile.  
"It could be worse, couldn't it?" she says.  
"Definitely," Helena says. "I could be stuck here with Pete."  
Myka gestures at the bartender for another pair of drinks.  
"No," she says. "You couldn't."  
"Oh?"  
Myka gives her a look that momentarily makes her breath stop.  
"Artie knows you work much better with me," she says.  
"Lucky me," Helena says.  
It's just the truth. She's so lucky, so very lucky, that she got to work with this woman. That Artie preferred to have her as far away from the Warehouse as possible as often as possible, and Myka with her.  
"So," Myka says. "What do you want to do to pass the time until tomorrow?"  
Some very enticing alternatives instantly pass through Helena's mind, and she suspects she's not hiding it very well.  
"I don't know," she says, trying to sound nonchalant. "What do you do to amuse yourself in New York these days? If we were in London in 1900, I'd suggest going to see a play, but I can't imagine that still being popular."  
"Oh, it is," Myka said. "Although it'd cost a fortune to get tickets to anything good at this short notice. Maybe a movie?"  
The old Helena knows perfectly well what those are, of course. The recently unbronzed Helena in 2010 does not. In 1900, moving pictures were all of five years old.  
"A what?" she says.  
Myka just looks at her for a moment, as if surprised by the amount of time that really separates them.  
"Um," she says, "moving pictures? The Lumiére brothers? Georges Méliès?"  
"Oh, that," Helena says. "It caught on, then?"  
Myka looks amused.  
"You could say that," she says. "Let's go see something. I think you'll find it interesting."

They go see an afternoon showing of _Inception_. Helena pretends to be impressed, but hardly watches the movie at all. She spends her time watching Myka. And, she notices, Myka spends more time watching her than the movie. All of a sudden, without warning, a wave of raw emotion swells up within Helena. She gasps, looks away from Myka, tears welling up. She tries to bring herself under control.  
A warm hand lands on her arm.  
"Hey," Myka says. "What's wrong?"  
She sounds worried and caring.  
"Just thinking about how lucky I am," Helena says. "Being here with you."  
Someone behind them makes a shushing sound. Helena almost laughs. If he but knew how far she's come just to be with the woman next to her.  
Myka leans close, her breath touching Helena's ear.  
"You're not really watching the movie either, are you?" she says.  
Helena shakes her head.  
"Want to leave?" Myka asks.  
She doesn't want to leave. She puts her free hand on top of the hand Myka is still holding her arm with, leans to the side and rests her head against Myka's shoulder.  
"No," she whispers. "I want to sit right here."  
She feels as much as hears Myka swallow.  
"Ok then," Myka whispers. "We stay."  
And then she leans her head on Helena's. Very lightly, and it certainly can't be comfortable, but it's a signal. A statement. Saying without words that as much as Helena is there because of Myka, Myka is there because of Helena. Helena closes her eyes and sighs, heart warmed.  
19 hours left.

"Are you hungry?" Myka asks when the leave the cinema. "I'm getting kind of hungry."  
"I could eat," Helena agrees.  
She hasn't really thought about it until now, but when she thinks about she really is hungry. She hasn't cared about food for many years. The senses of taste and smell have been among those many things that have simply faded away with age. It's been a decade or more since she last ate for any other reason than pure sustenance.  
"Good," Myka says. "What do you want to eat?"  
Another thing her younger body has more of is hormones. For a moment, her brain betrays her and her eyes drop to around Myka's hips. When Helena catches herself and looks up again, Myka is looking straight at her, and over the course of the next few silent seconds she blushes.  
"Something that wasn't around in 1900?" Helena suggests, trying to ease the tension a little. For the moment, at least.  
"I have already tried pizza," she adds.  
Myka visibly collects herself.  
"Sushi?" she suggests. "I know a good place."  
Helena smiles.  
"Lead the way," she says.

There isn't actually any food available in 2010 New York that old Helena hasn't already tried. There is a lot that 1900 Helena hasn't, though, and sushi is among it. It isn't and has never been one of her favorite foods, but she likes it well enough. Also, her actual favorite food won't be designed until genetic gastronomy gets going in the late 2020s.  
The restaurant tries to look genuinely Japanese. It has low tables with straw mats to sit on, and the staff kneels before putting food onto the table. The young women serving them also placed them at a corner table, where they sit with their knees only inches apart yet can easily look at each other. It's surprisingly private, and the waitresses keep smiling like they find Helena and Myka very cute.  
Helena had no idea she was that transparent. She feels embarrassed and flattered at the same time, and judging from Myka's expression her feelings are much the same. Myka picks up the little bowl of very pale yellow liquid in front of her.  
"This is saké," she says. "Rice wine. Cheers?"  
Helena picks up her own bowl and gestures with it in Myka's direction.  
"Cheers," she says.  
They drink. It's good saké. Much better than any Helena has had since the rice crops started failing. She can feel the warm buzz of alcohol spread through her body.  
"Nice," she says.  
"The Warehouse is paying," Myka says. "I'm not sure if that means we should be responsible and spend as little as possible, or go wild and run up the largest bill we can manage by legal means."  
"Yes you are," Helena says. "You'd feel bad for _months_ if you deliberately ran up a huge bill."  
Myka looks down into her bowl and her shoulders slump a little.  
"You're right," she says. "I would."  
"It's part of what fascinates me about you," Helena says. "You're so honest, so righteous. And not because you think you should, or because you're afraid of the consequences or anything like that. You are that way just because you think it's the right thing to do."  
Myka looks a little uncomfortable.  
"Isn't it?" she says.  
"Of course it is," Helena says. "I just never met anyone else with the strength to live it."  
"I don't know," Myka says. "From my point of view, I'm just the sad little nerdy girl nobody else wants to play with. Following the rules and doing the right thing, because that way even when they tease me I can still feel superior."  
She looks straight at Helena.  
"It's not a question of strength," she says. "I just never learned any other way to be."  
She drinks, deeply, from her saké bowl.  
"And, yes, it's made me good at what I do. But it's also made my life pretty lonely."  
She puts the bowl down, empty. Helena puts her hand gently on Myka's arm.  
"It doesn't have to stay that way," she says.  
Myka turns to look at her, smiling and looking a bit scared.  
Just then, two waitresses appear and start putting down plates and trays on their table. Helena removes her hand before Myka can pull her arm away.

The food really is good. Helena is too wound up thinking about Myka and worrying about her not being happy to pay attention to what she's doing, so she accidentally surprises Myka by using chopsticks with practiced ease. When called on it, she mumbles something about having had Chinese servants for a while back in London.  
"How about you?" Myka says.  
Helena looks up.  
"Huh?" she says, not having been listening.  
"What were you like when you grew up?"  
She can feel her expression turn bitter.  
"I think," she says, "that if I had grown up a hundred years later, I would've been much like you. But back in my time, there was no place for a clever girl. None whatsoever. Everything I wanted, everything I liked to do, everything I _was_ , was disapproved of. As well as often illegal. I was lucky to have my brother, who loved me just as I was and gave me the opportunity to live my life less unlike how I wanted it than might have been the case."  
It's not until the saké is sliding down her throat that it occurs to her that she's nearly mirroring what Myka did earlier. She sighs, once she's swallowed.  
"I was not a happy child," she says. "Nor a happy woman."  
A warm, firm hand lands on her arm. She looks up, meets Myka's smiling eyes.  
"It doesn't have to stay that way," Myka says.  
An amused twinkle in her eye lets Helena know that Myka knows quite well that she's quoting Helena's line back, but it's also quite clear that she means what she says. Helena can't help but laugh.  
"Oh, brave new world," she quotes, "that has such people in it!"  
Myka briefly tilts her head in thought.  
"'Tis new to thee," she quotes the next line.  
"You like Shakespeare?" Helena asks, surprised. She has no memory of that.  
"Not really," Myka says. "But I grew up in a book store and I have a photographic memory, so..."  
Of course. That, she knew. Momentarily at a loss for words, Helena picks up a piece of sushi and puts it in her mouth. She's not sure what kind of fish is on it, but whatever it is is delicious. She closes her eyes and for a few moments just enjoys the taste.  
"I liked that one," she says once she's eaten it all.  
Myka picks up the similar piece from her own plate with her chopsticks and holds it up to Helena's mouth.  
"Don't you like it?" Helena says.  
"Yes," Myka says. "I like how it made you look even more."  
Without breaking eye contact for a moment, Helena engulfs the piece with her mouth. And the ends of the chopsticks Myka has been eating with, of course. She moves her head back, so the chopsticks slide out, slowly. It feels a bit like a kiss by proxy, and she can tell that the same thought has occurred to Myka. She chews and swallows the sushi piece, too distracted to enjoy it as much as the first one.  
"Thank you," she says. "But I can't just take your food. Which one do you want in return?"  
"Oh, you don't have to," Myka says, shaking her head.  
"Which one?" Helena insists.  
Myka relents. She points at a simple California roll piece. Helena picks it up with the chopsticks, holds it up to her. Just as Helena did, Myka keeps eye contact as she takes it into her mouth. Myka's full, red lips closed around the wooden sticks Helena are holding is the most intensely erotic thing she has seen in many a decade. As soon as Myka has finished her piece, Helena puts down the chopsticks and finishes off the sak√© in her bowl.  
Myka eats another piece, quite normally and with her own chopsticks.  
"Have you thought about what you want for desert?" she asks.  
An image of Myka stretched out naked across her bed, Helena carefully kissing her way down the bare skin from throat to knees flashes unbidden before her inner eyes. She feels her face turn red, and she tries to mask her momentary inability to speak with a cough.  
"No, I haven't," she lies.  
"Maybe we can skip desert here, and go have something somewhere else?" Myka says.  
"That sounds like an excellent idea," Helena manages to say.  
Myka smiles at her, then turns to attract the attention of a waitress so she can pay. Helena tries to get herself under control.  
Sixteen hours left.

They end up in Central Park some time after sunset. They've spent the walk there trading descriptions of weird and wonderful artifacts they've dealt with. A comfortably safe subject, and from how they've both stuck to it like fly paper Helena guesses that Myka is feeling roughly as confused as she is.  
She shouldn't be this uncertain. She _knows_ that she and Myka start their relationship somewhere between now and eleven tomorrow morning. That's what happened, and Helena knows all too well that the past cannot be changed. She knows that Myka is in love with her, and that there is nothing she can possibly do to mess that up. Yet, she is nervous. Scared that she'll get things wrong. That she'll upset her beloved. Get the two of them off to a bad start. She, who used to make it a sport to entice proper London ladies to her bed and was very good at it, she can't think of how to take the step from friends to more with Myka. It is too important to her, too strong. Something deep inside her mind can't really believe that this is happening to her, and just waits for it to turn bad. Which it will, of course, and it'll be all Helena's own damn fault, but that's further ahead the timeline from this. Right now, right here, she cannot fail.  
She sighs at her own weakness. It would've been much easier if it had been the year 1900. At least she would've known the social rules she was breaking.  
"What's the matter?" Myka asks. "Is something wrong?"  
Helena breaks out of her brooding. They're walking along a beautiful path surrounded by trees. Myka is turned to her, frowning with worry.  
"It's nothing," Helena says, forcing herself to smile. "I was just thinking."  
"I know the feeling," Myka says. "Horrible habit, thinking. I've been trying to quit, but it never seems to work."  
Helena laughs. The desire to take Myka in her arms is strong enough to almost feel like a physical force.  
"Do you think we could grow old together?" Myka asks.  
Helena whips her head around to look at her, shock coursing through her body. Does she somehow know what Helena is agonizing over? Is she _teasing_ Helena? But no. Myka is looking over at a crossing path, at a pair of old women out walking together. As Helena and Myka watch, they stop and throw some breadcrumbs to the birds.  
"Yes," Helena says, letting her imagination free. "We could. We'd patent an couple of my inventions and license the rights, getting filthy rich. We'd buy a large house somewhere along the coast between Monte Carlo and Nice and live there except in winter. For that, we'd have another house on Martinique. We'd spend our time running charities promoting feminist causes. We'd have four cats. A grumpy old tom called Artie, a flighty young tom called Pete, a solemn matron called Leena and..."  
"...A bright young female called Claudia," Myka finishes her sentence. "Have you been thinking about this for long?"  
"No," Helena says. "It just seemed like a natural course of events."  
Myka laughs.  
"Well, then," she says. "When do we get started?"  
"As soon as we're done with the Warehouse," Helena says.  
An impulse slips through her self-control, and without consciously meaning to she leans over and places a brief kiss on Myka's cheek. Myka puts her hand over the just-kissed spot.  
"What did I do to earn that?" she says, smiling.  
"Just for being you," Helena says.  
For a few seconds they look into each others' eyes in silence. Helena breaks it off first.  
"So, did I tell you about the umbrella that made it rain frogs?" she says.  
Myka's smile widens.  
"No," she says. "What about it?"  
"Well," Helena says, glad that the change of subject worked. "It was owned by this American living in London by the name of Charles Fort..."

There's twelve hours and five minutes left. Helena has kept track of the time very carefully. Of the ten hours and fourteen minutes she's been here so far, she's spent nine hours and fifty-six minutes with Myka. The remaining eighteen, she's spent sitting on the edge of the bed in her hotel room. Alone.  
It's not what she wants to do. The one reason she is here in the first place is to be with Myka. When they got back to the hotel and up to their rooms, she should have done something. Said something. When Myka stood outside her own door for a much longer time than is reasonable, finally to say "Well, I guess this is good night, then", Helena should have protested. Suggested something else. Done _something_ other than just say "Yes, sleep well".  
When did she become this afraid? She can't even figure out for herself what it is she's afraid _of_. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can go wrong, and no matter what she does, in twelve hours and four minutes she will be dead.  
She stands up and heads for the door, concentrating on not stopping herself. She goes out into the corridor, and walks down it the few steps to the next room down. Myka's room. Not giving herself time to doubt, she knocks on it.  
A surprisingly short amount of time later, Myka opens the door. She frowns when she sees Helena.  
"Helena?" she says. "What's wrong?"  
Worry mars her beauty.  
"It's silly, really," Helena says. "I found I just couldn't stand not being close to you."  
"I'm just next door," Myka says.  
"That made it worse," Helena says.  
Myka's frown turns into a smile. She steps back and holds the door open in an implicit invitation. Helena enters.  
The room looks, unsurprisingly, exactly like Helena's. They have even placed their suitcases in exactly the same spot, on the mostly useless stuffed chair under the window, the lid leaning open against the wall.  
Myka closes the door. She looks thoughtful. Gnaws on her lower lip for a moment.  
"You know this is getting ridiculous, right?" she says.  
"It won't be the first time I'm ridiculous," Helena says. "Some might say I've made a habit of it."  
Myka shakes her head.  
"I don't mean you," she says. "I mean us. Both of us. Together."  
Helena stands in the middle of the floor, hands clasped in front of her. It's a much more defensive than inviting posture, but right now she needs the mental support it gives her.  
"We are?" she asks.  
"Helena," Myka says. "Do you know what I was doing when you knocked?"  
"Getting ready to go to sleep?" Helena answers, knowing full well that it's not what Myka was doing. If it was, she wouldn't ask.  
Myka shakes her head.  
"I was about to go and knock on your door, and ask if you wanted to go have a drink in the hotel bar," she says.  
"Oh," Helena says. "I would've said yes."  
"Helena," Myka says again. "Is there anything I could've asked that you wouldn't have agreed to?"  
"Well, I wouldn't have agreed to stab myself in the eyes with a salad fork," Helena says. "But I don't think you'd ever ask me to do that."  
Helena draws breath.  
"Of those things I can imagine you ever actually asking of me," she says. "No. There is nothing I would not do for you. Nothing at all."  
Saying the words fills her with a strange mixture of fear and elation. She'll never say anything like this to Myka ever again, she remembers that. In the coming weeks until they are parted forever, they never once stop and talk about what they feel, what they worry about, what their fears are. It occurs to her that maybe that is because they do so now, and for the short time they're together they don't need to do so again. Tonight, they build enough trust to last until the end.  
Myka goes and sits on the edge of the bed.  
"I don't know your world," she says. "Yes, I've read about it in history books, but I don't _know_ it. I don't know how it felt growing up there. I understand that you had a hard time, that you never fit in, that you suffered horrible tragedy and loss. And I wish I truly knew where you came from, so I could know how to help you. That I knew how to take on some of your burden. How to share your pain, and make it easier to bear."  
She stops for a moment and gestures aimlessly, as if fishing for words.  
"I wish I knew how to give you a part of _me_ ," she says. "So a part of you could get some rest."  
Helena has to look away. Tears are forming in her eyes. She is far from a virgin. She's had many lovers, of both sexes, spread out over three different centuries. Some for long, some for a night. One of them gave her Christina, even if he never knew. Never once have any of them said something to her like what Myka just did. Never once.  
"Let me be with you," Helena says. "If you truly wish to make me happy, that is all I ask."  
Myka looks at her appraisingly.  
"No," she says after a little while. "That wouldn't work at all."  
She crosses her legs and rests her elbow on her knee.  
"You moping after me like a love-sick teenager? That's really not you, is it?"  
Helena looks away from her. She's right and wrong. Right for 2010 Helena, not so right for ten hours to live Helena.  
"No," Helena admits. "It's not."  
"You're in a strange mood tonight," Myka says.  
"I guess I am," Helena says.  
Myka stands.  
"Come on," she says. "Let's go have that drink."

They walk the hotel corridors in silence. Surprisingly, at least to Helena, not an awkward one. Just a relaxed one. It's quite nice, really. They get to the lounge at the hotel's top floor, and sit down at the bar.  
"What do you want?" Myka asks.  
"My knowledge of drinks is a tad out of date," Helena says. "Order something for me."  
"Two Gin and Tonics," Myka says to the bartender. "And keep new ones coming as we finish them, ok?"  
She hands him her Warehouse AmEx card.  
"Sure," he says.  
"Are you sure that won't annoy Artie?" Helena asks when the bartender is out of earshot.  
"We'll call it a mental health thing," Myka says.  
She drinks from the glass that has just appeared in front of her. Helena does likewise. It tastes like something she could've had back in 1900. It's comfortingly familiar. Maybe that's why Myka chose it. When she looks to the side, she sees that Myka has finished off half her glass already. She frowns.  
"If you pour it down like that, you'll be falling down drunk in half an hour," she says.  
"Not going that far," Myka says. "But in ten minutes or so I should be at just about the right level of drunk to tell you something."  
"Oh? What?"  
Myka drains the rest of her drink, then turns to look at Helena.  
"Not drunk enough yet," she says.  
The bartender puts down two full glasses in front of them. Helena still hasn't more than started on her first one.  
"All right," she says. "What do we do until you are?"  
"Tell me something," Myka says. "Tell me about when you grew up. No, wait, tell me about your first girlfriend."  
Helena laughs a little.  
"Girlfriend as in the first woman I had sex with, or girlfriend as in the first woman a had anything resembling a relationship with?"  
"Either," Myka says.  
"The first was mostly embarrassing, so let's skip that," Helena says.  
"No, tell that one," Myka interrupts. "I shouldn't be the only one making a fool of myself tonight."  
Helena relents.  
"I was, oh, sixteen or seventeen," she says. "Our usual maid had had to go home to Blackpool to care for her sick mother, and we had a temporary to replace her."  
She sipped from her glass. Myka finished her second and started in on was supposed to be Helena's second.  
"She was from Denmark," Helena says. "And by a long shot the most gorgeous woman I'd ever seen. Long, blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin, freckles. She filled out the top her dress very nicely, and my mind was all too eager to imagine what else was hidden under it."  
She still remembered that smiling face clearly.  
"One evening, I was in my chambers. I was busy vividly imagining the shape of Margrete, with the aid of a well-polished hairbrush handle."  
Myka laughs a little into her drink.  
"Nicely phrased," she says.  
"Thanks," Helena says. "Anyway, at one point I apparently failed to stifle my vocal expressions enough, and Margrete thought I was calling for her. So, being a good maid, she entered."  
"Ouch," Myka says.  
"Quite," Helena agrees.  
"What did she do?"  
Helena sighs.  
"She offered her assistance," she says. "Before I recovered from my burning shame enough to turn her down or run away, she'd unlaced her bodice and was naked from the waist up. At which point my hormones overrode my sense."  
Myka is drinking more slowly now.  
"Sounds like a story from a dirty magazine," she says.  
"The next day she threatened to tell my father if I didn't give her money," Helena says.  
Myka winces.  
"What did you do?"  
"I hid some of our silverware under my bed, and told my parents I'd seen Margrete take it," she says. "Since I was a proper English young lady and she was a lowly foreign worker, that was about it. I have no idea what happened to her after she was taken away."  
Myka stares at her.  
"Oh my god," she says. "That's horrible."  
Helena drinks a bit more.  
"Yeah, well," she says. "Those were pretty horrible times. And I never claimed to be particularly good."  
But more than a century and a half later, she still feels bad about it.  
"I didn't mean it like that," Myka says, suddenly looking worried.  
"Yes, you did," Helena says. "And you were right to. It was a rotten thing I did, back then. My only defense is that I was a teenager, and she was trying to blackmail me."  
"Both quite valid excuses," Myka says.  
She finishes her third drink.  
"Myka," Helena says, "I really think you should slow down. At least give the alcohol some time to get into your blood, or you'll blow right past whatever level of intoxicated you are aiming for. Whatever it is you want to say, I'm quite sure it will not be in an way made better if you're busy vomiting while you say it."  
"Maybe I want to just blurt something out on my way past, and then proceed into unconsciousness as fast as possible," Myka says.  
"You don't," Helena says. "That would leave you unable to work tomorrow, and you'd never do that."  
Myka puts down the glass she was just about to drink from.  
"No," she sighs. "I wouldn't."  
They sit in silence for a little while. Helena is trying to think of something to say when Myka turns to her.  
"Helena?" she says.  
"Yes?" Helena says.  
"I'm crazy in love with you," Myka says.  
The expression on her face is a strange mixture of determined, embarrassed and scared witless.  
"I know it's silly, and stupid, and it can never work," she goes on. "I don't really know you, and you come from a place that's a lot more alien than just another country, and..."  
"Myka," Helena interrupts.  
Myka falls silent in mid-sentence.  
Helena takes her hand between both of her own.  
"I love you," she says.  
She brings Myka's hand to her lips and kisses it.  
"If you, as you say, love me too, that's the most wonderful thing I've ever heard."  
There are tears in her eyes again, and her voice is wavering. She doesn't want to be this emotional, but she can't help it. It's been so very, very long since she last heard Myka tell her that.  
"You're crying," Myka says. "What's wrong?"  
Helena smiles at her.  
"Nothing is wrong," she says. "It's very right. I'm just..."  
She can't find any words for how she feels. Instead, she leans over and awkwardly hugs Myka from one bar stool to another. Myka enthusiastically hug her back. They sit there, holding each other, just feeling each others' presence.  
"So, um," the bartender says. "I guess you don't want any more of those drinks, then?"  
Ten hours left.

They don't stop touching for a moment after they leave the bar. They try to be somewhat discreet as they make their way over to the elevator, since there are other people around. Myka giggles. Helena takes that as a sign of exactly how drunk she really is.  
"You are so pretty," Myka says while they wait for the elevator.  
A dull-looking businessman waits right next to them.  
"Thank you," Helena says. "You are too."  
"So can I call you my girlfriend now?" Myka asks.  
"I would like it a lot if you did," Helena says.  
Myka puts a finger on the tip of Helena's nose.  
"My girlfriend," she says, voice full of wonder.  
A bell rings and the elevator door opens. The two of them and the businessman gets in.  
Helena leans back against the wall, puts her arms around Myka's waist and pulls her close. Myka puts her head on Helena's shoulder and sighs contentedly. The sound of that, and the feel of her there, fills Helena with a warm sense of happiness.  
The elevator jerks to a stop and the doors slide open. The businessman walks out, and as he does they clearly hear him stage-whisper "Filthy dykes!". Much faster than Helena would've imagined possible for someone at her level of inebriation, and faster than Helena can react, Myka has broken their embrace, pulled out her Tesla and is pointing it at the guy's back. Her expression is far from content, instead she wears a look of vicious fury that Helena has never seen on her before.  
Before Myka can shoot, Helena gets a hand on her arm.  
"Don't," she says. "You'll hate yourself for it in the morning."  
"Didn't you hear what he said?!"  
She's never known Myka this angry. Didn't know the calm, collected agent could _be_ this angry. Although, granted, she doesn't get to know her for all that long a time, in the end. This may be the only time she ever sees Myka really drunk.  
"I heard," she says. "If you really want him shot, let me. Between the two of us, I'm the villain, remember? You're the hero. Heroes don't shoot people in the back. Not even with stunners."  
The elevator door bumps into Myka, trying to close.  
Myka stares at Helena. After a few seconds she lowers the Tesla and steps back into the elevator. She slumps against the wall.  
"You're not a villain," she says. "And I'm not a hero."  
The elevator starts sinking again.  
"Your job consists of putting yourself in harms way to protect people who'll never even know you did it," Helena says. "How is that not being a hero?"  
Myka laughs feebly. She holds out the Tesla to Helena.  
"Maybe you'd better take this for now," she says.  
Helena does, and it suddenly occurs to her that that explains why she'll come back to her 2010 self tomorrow carrying three of them instead of her usual one plus backup.  
The elevator doors open again. Helena takes Myka gently by the arm and leads her out into the corridor. It seems like the alcohol in her stomach is still making its way into her bloodstream, and she's steadily getting more intoxicated. Maybe she ought to try to make her vomit. But no, if it was that bad her stomach would've taken care of that by itself already.  
"God, you're so pretty," Myka says.  
Helena has her arm around her waist, but it's more to keep her upright than just because she wants to.  
"How did I manage to get a girlfriend that pretty?" Myka continues. "I must be dreaming."  
She stops, tries to stand up straight. Puts out a hand and steadies herself against the wall. She looks at Helena.  
"Am I dreaming?" she says.  
"If you are, I'm having the same dream," Helena says.  
Myka frowns.  
"An artifact could do that," she says. "Make us share dreams. Actually, I saw in the database..."  
Helena interrupts her with a quick, chaste kiss on the lips.  
"You're not dreaming," Helena says. "Now come on. We're going to get you into your room, have you drink several glasses of water and then put you to bed."  
"Will you come to bed with me?" Myka asks.  
Helena smiles.  
"If you want me there, absolutely," she says. "Although I'm pretty sure that you're going to pass out as soon as you lie down."  
" _If_ I want you there?" Myka says. "I've wanted you there since the first time I saw you."  
Rather than try to get Myka's keycard from her, Helena drags her the dozen or so more steps to her own room. She gets them in without either of them falling down, and gets Myka to sit down on the bed. As soon as Helena lets go of her, she falls over backward.  
"I'll get some water," Helena says. "It'll make you feel a bit less bad tomorrow."  
She gets a large bottle of water from the minibar, and fills a glass that she hands to Myka. Myka raises herself up on one elbow and obediently drinks it.  
"This is your room," she says after she's finished the third glass.  
"It is," Helena admits.  
"So I'm in your bed," Myka says.  
"You are," Helena says.  
A ridiculously pleased grin spreads over Myka's face. Helena can't help smiling back at her. Also, she's roughly as pleased with having Myka in her bed as she is being there. She puts the water bottle and the used glass away, and when she turns back to the bed Myka has stripped off her tshirt. She's lying down again, legs over the edge of the bed, arms spread out and only a sensible sports bra covering her upper body. Her hair is spread out like a chestnut halo around her head.  
Helena freezes and stares.  
Yes, she's seen this before. She's seen all of Myka naked. But not for a very long time, and this is the _first_ time. This is when Myka choses to bare herself to Helena, body and soul. Apparently she had to get herself drunk to dare do it, but she certainly did so knowingly and of her own free will.  
"Helena?" Myka says, her eyes closed.  
"Yes?" Helena manages to get out.  
"Can you help me get my jeans off?"  
"Sure," her mouth says while she's still trying to figure out if that's a good idea.  
As she undoes the belt and buttons, she can't prevent herself from stroking and occasionally kissing Myka's smooth, flat belly. Not that she tries particularly hard not to. Especially not after the first kiss elicits a delighted moan from Myka. She takes off her sneakers and socks, and then starts the process of getting the jeans off Myka's legs. Her silky, long, curvy legs. Helena strokes, caresses and kisses her way down them as they are gradually freed from their clothing. She delights in every inch of revealed flesh, and she takes it really, really slowly. By the time she finally drops the pair of jeans to the carpet, she's more excited than she can remember ever being while still wearing all her clothes.  
"Now," she says as she sits down next to Myka. "Are there any more pieces of clothing that need my assistance?"  
The final word tapers off into silence when she sees that Myka has fallen asleep. Her head is tilted to the side, her mouth ever so slightly open.  
Well. This is exactly what Helena predicted would happen, so she shouldn't be surprised. And she isn't, not really. She's not even particularly disappointed. She came here just to be with Myka, and she is. What she mostly feels is content.  
As gently as she can, she drags Myka fully onto the bed. Puts her head on the pillow and puts the blanket over her. That done, she too strips down to her underwear and gets into the bed. Myka has turned over on her side, so Helena lies down close behind her, one arm embracing her. She feels happy, for the first time in decades. With her nose buried in Myka's hair, she gently drifts off to sleep.  
Eight hours left.

For the first few moments after she wakes up, she can't remember where she is. The room she's in isn't the small Paris loft where she's lived half her life. She nearly panics before she remembers. And then she nearly panics again, only for a different reason. She whips her head around to look at the clock.  
Two hours twenty-four minutes left.  
Someone places a kiss on her cheek.  
"Good morning, my girlfriend," Myka says.  
Helena looks up at Myka, who's sitting next to her. Her hair is wet, and she's got a towel wrapped around her.  
"Good morning to you too," Helena says.  
Myka gets off the bed and walks over to the large mirror, grabs the hair dryer.  
"Artie called," she says. "Claudia found a lead. He wants us to get over to the Museum of Natural History pretty soon. Someone from the museum staff is going to meet us there. There's enough time to grab a shower and some breakfast."  
"Do I get company in the shower?" Helena says.  
Myka smiles at her.  
"We don't have nearly enough time for that," she says. "Unfortunately."  
She starts to blow-dry her hair, and the noise prevents further conversation. Helena remains in the bed for a little while, just looking at Myka. She's a very attractive sight, standing there naked but for the towel. Definitely worth spending your time on, even when you have less than two and a half hours left to live. Or maybe particularly then.  
Helena dodges into the bathroom and takes a very quick shower. When she comes out again, hotel-provided bathrobe covering her up, Myka is standing by the wardrobe, wearing one of Helena's blouses and looking sheepish. The blouse looks good on her, even if it is a bit loose around the bust.  
"I'm sorry," Myka says. "I thought this was my room. They look so similar. And I have a blouse almost exactly like this one. It wasn't until the pants didn't fit at all that I realized."  
"There's a skirt in there," Helena says. "That should fit you well enough. And the burgundy vest with them, I think."  
"You don't mind?" Myka says.  
"Not at all," Helena says. "They look good on you."  
She smirks lasciviously.  
"And if I change my mind I can always demand you return them immediately," she says.  
Myka laughs.  
"I wish," she says.  
Helena walks over to the dresser, drops the bathrobe and starts fishing out clean underwear. Myka makes a half-strangled sound behind her.  
"Is there a problem?" Helena asks.  
"No," Myka squeaks. "No problem."  
Helena looks at Myka over her shoulder, smiling.  
"We don't have time, remember?" she says. "So think of it as incentive to find this artifact quickly."  
"Right," Myka says. "Quickly, then."  
Helena puts on a white blouse, dark slacks and a grey vest, then they leave to have breakfast.

Helena remembers where and what the artifact is. It is, of all possible things, a new light fixture that's recently been installed in a display room. If someone stands under it for too long, they become unnoticeable. Not invisible or silent or anything, their presence just stops registering in other people's brains. They never figure out how the fixture became an artifact, or why. They just figure out where it is and what it does, neutralize it and put it in the Warehouse.  
Tomorrow, they figure it out. So now and here Helena pretends not to have an idea. She lets Myka lead, and tries to help just the right amount. Not too much, nor too little.  
It's not like she's going to have to keep it up for long.

There's less than an hour left, and Helena's mood is turning weird. Not that she knows what mood you're supposed to be in when you have only that long left to live. Sixty short minutes, then nothing. Helena does not believe in an afterlife. Sure, she was brought up to be a good Christian, but that was much more of saying and doing the right things than of actually believing anything. She may have had some vague belief in the Christian God when she first started working for Warehouse 12, but that soon vanished. She saw too many too strange things, things that just didn't fit with the Christian view of the world. And with all the things she has seen, she's never seen any convincing proof of life after death. So she doesn't believe there is any.  
"Let's take a walk," Myka says. "I can't think in here."  
Helena agrees, and they leave. Naturally enough, given that the museum is right next to it, they head into Central Park.  
"I don't get it," Myka says after they've walked in silence for a little while. "Four people have just plain vanished, and nobody has noticed. Not even their families? Not even their _kids_? That's just wrong."  
Helena grunts in response.  
It's becoming increasingly hard for her to care about the case. She knows it will be solved after she's gone. There is no reason for her to care. And there are so many things that she's now experiencing for the last time. Walking between trees. Listening to birds. Having her love next to her. In less than an hour, she'll never experience any of that ever again. She'll be gone forever. And at some point in the distant future, an empty shell that used to be her will pass away in a chair in Paris apartment. Probably from dehydration, but she's not really sure what happens to a body after its mind fails to return after a time excursion. It's not really something she has tested.  
"Helena?"  
She looks up, dragged out of her thoughts. Myka has stopped and is looking at her.  
"Are you OK?" she asks.  
Helena tries to put on a careless smile.  
"I'm fine," she says.  
Myka frowns at her.  
"You've been acting odd all day," she says.  
Suddenly, her expression freezes.  
"It's because of last night, isn't it?" she says. "You're having second thoughts."  
Helena blinks. It takes a moment for what she hears to penetrate, but when it does everything else fades to insignificance.  
"What?" she says. "No!"  
She grabs Myka's hands, and has to force herself not to hold them too hard.  
"You're the best thing that ever happens to me!" she says. "If there is anything, anything at all, that I regret about the two of us, it is that I didn't approach you much earlier."  
She draws a breath, tries to calm herself down.  
Myka is still looking at her with an odd expression, but at least it's not hard disappointment any more.  
"I do love you," Helena says. "Possibly I don't show it very well, but I do, with all my heart. Nothing makes me happier than being with you."  
Myka pulls one of her hands free, and with it she strokes Helena's hair.  
"I believe you," she says. "I shouldn't have doubted you. I'm sorry."  
Helena leans her head against Myka's hand.  
"I don't want you to be sorry," she says. "I want you to be happy."  
Myka smiles at her.  
"So kiss me already," she says.  
That's an invite Helena cannot possibly resist. The kiss starts slowly, almost hesitantly, as they both try to make sure that they're not somehow doing something wrong. Their arms go around each other, holding their bodies close. Helena tilts her head up, so her mouth can meet that of the slightly taller Myka. Her lips meet Myka's, and as they open to let her in so does her heart. For a little while the world around her fades away, and all her senses focus on the woman she's holding and who is holding her. When they break the kiss, Helena doesn't let go. She keeps embracing Myka, and leans her head on her shoulder.  
"Myka?" she says.  
"Yes, love?" Myka says.  
The words send a tingle down Helena's spine, of pleasure mixed with sadness.  
"I am in a strange mood," Helena said.  
Myka hums in vague agreement. Helena sneaks a look at her watch.  
"It will pass soon," she says. "But until it does, do you think we could sit down somewhere and you can just hold me?"  
"Of course," Myka says. "Let's walk out of sight of the footpath."  
They head straight away from the path, in among the trees. It's nothing like the forests Helena remembers from when she was a child, but it's a little bit of nature. It's not long before they reach the edge of the lake. Myka sits down by a sturdy tree, leaning her back against it. She pulls on Helena's hand, and guides her down. Helena ends up sitting between Myka's outstretched legs, leaning against her chest, embraced by her arms. It makes her feel warm, and safe, and loved.  
They sit there, in silence. The lake stretches out before them, its surface creased by a gentle wind. They see other people walking or jogging along it, and all the sounds of the city come through in the distance.  
"Do you want to talk about it?" Myka whispers gently into Helena's hear.  
"Not now," Helena says. "Maybe some other time."  
But there will not be another time. Not ever. She has only minutes left. She will not spend them on that.  
"Why do we so rarely see the good things we have while we have them?" she says.  
Myka places tiny little kisses along her jawbone.  
"Because we're human," she says in between them.  
Slowly, Helena becomes aware that a strange sensation has been growing inside her for a minute or so. It's reminiscent of the strangeness of going back in time, and she realizes that it's the feeling of her consciousness losing whatever it is that holds it to this body and this time.  
It's the feeling of her dying.  
She glances at her watch, suddenly uncertain how accurate it is, and how well she's kept track of time. What if there was a delay at the start, while the clock was running but she was not yet conscious? She may have a little less time left than she thinks.  
"Myka?" she says, again.  
"Yes?" Myka says, patiently.  
"I will never stop loving you."  
"Thank you," Myka says.  
Helena turns a little so she can look Myka in the eyes.  
"No," she says. "I'm serious. You need to know that. Whatever happens, _whatever I do_ , I never stop loving you. Never. Say you will remember that. Please."  
"All right," Myka says. "I will remember that. Whatever you do, you still love me."  
Helena turns back towards the lake, and snuggles deeper into Myka's embrace. She can feel her awareness fading.  
"Thank you," she says. "My love."  
For her last few seconds, she is at peace.

Two days later, the artifact light fixture is in the Warehouse and the two agents are back at the B&B. It's a perfectly normal night. Pete is reading comic books. Claudia got bored with the Xbox 360, so she's improving it. Helena is in the library reading. Leena is cleaning up the kitchen after dinner.  
And Myka is sitting out on the porch, thinking. She sits there for a long time, until finally Leena starts wondering about it. She goes out and sits down in the chair next to Myka's.  
"Everything all right?" she asks.  
"Yeah," Myka says.  
Then she sighs.  
"If I ask you about something," she says, "can you forget I ever said it afterwards?"  
"I can certainly act as if I had," Leena says.  
Myka looks out into the darkness.  
"While we were in New York," she says, "a Helena from the future used her time machine to go back and take over this Helena's body."  
"What?" Leena says. "Are you sure?"  
Myka nods.  
"For about twenty-two and a half hours, she was acting strange. Not very strange, it still was clearly her, but strange enough to notice. Then she suddenly flipped back to her normal self, except she didn't seem to remember anything that had happened the day before."  
Leena looks at Myka.  
"And there was something during that day that she really should've remembered?"  
Myka nods, but doesn't elaborate.  
"Ok," Leena said. "Why did she come back? Did she seem interested in anything in particular?"  
"Yes," Myka says. "Me."  
Leena opens her mouth to say something. Myka interrupts her.  
"Yes, I'm sure," she says.  
Leena smiles.  
"Why would she do that?" she says.  
"That," Myka says, "is what I've been trying to figure out."  
She sighs deeply.  
"All the alternatives I can think of are bad," she said. "For one reason or another, it must be that she can't be with me in the future. If it was because I dumped her, I doubt she'd come back. It's not her style. So the most likely reason I can think of is that I'm dead. Or in a permanent coma, or something like that."  
She turns to Leena.  
"Please tell me you can think of something less bad," she says.  
Leena thinks for a while before answering.  
"Sorry," she says. "But I can't."  
"Well," Myka says. "It was worth asking."  
She gets up.  
"Remember, this conversation never happened," she says.  
Leena nods.  
"What are you going to do now?" she asks.  
Myka looks longingly at the window behind which Helena sits reading. Her head can be seen. Whatever she's reading makes her smile. Her long, dark hair drapes her face, and highlights gleam in the light from the reading lamp.  
"I'm going to make the best of whatever time we have," Myka says. "Thanks for the chat."  
She heads indoors. Soon, Leena can se her enter the library. She and Helena exchange a few words, and then Myka takes Helena by the hand and drags her out of the room. Leena can hear the old stairs creak as the two women head for the bedrooms upstairs.  
Leena sighs, and heads indoors herself.  
She can't help thinking that it's not going to end well for those two.


End file.
